(AP) — LSU will close its Baton Rouge hospital and shift its medical education and inpatient hospital care in the capital city to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center under a deal approved by lawmakers Friday.The move, backed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, will keep the state from building a new $480 million replacement hospital for the outdated, state-owned Earl K. Long Medical Center, which serves the poor and uninsured.The joint House and Senate budget committee voted overwhelmingly Friday to approve the agreement, despite opposition from some area lawmakers concerned about moving services too far away from the poor population and about layoffs of Earl K. Long employees.Approval also came despite the arguments of the leader of another Baton Rouge hospital, who said the deal could drive more uninsured and poor patients into his medical center without the dollars to pay for their care.Discussions of how to cope with the aging facilities of Earl K. Long hospital have stretched over decades. The hospital is in poor shape, causing accreditation troubles and threats that the medical education program could lose its certifications.”We have a facility problem today that we have to solve,” said LSU System Vice President Fred Cerise. “We can only dance so long with the accrediting agencies.”Cerise said Earl K. Long will close by 2013, and its patients will be admitted to Our Lady of the Lake, known as The Lake. Existing LSU medical student training programs also will move there. The state will pay $38 million as part of the move.State Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine said moving LSU’s inpatient care and training programs to The Lake will give Baton Rouge its first top-level trauma center, expand access to specialty care to the poor and uninsured and improve graduate medical education by exposing students to more patients.House members on the budget committee voted 18-2 to approve the agreement, while senators on the committee voted 10-2 to approve. All opponents were members of the Legislature’s black caucus.Sen. Sharon Broome, a Democrat whose district includes Earl K. Long, voted against the agreement.She said too many questions remained unanswered about how LSU will provide the obstetrics and prisoner care previously administered at Earl K. Long hospital that The Lake won’t provide. She also wanted more details about how many Earl K. Long employees will move to The Lake.”I certainly don’t think those questions are unreasonable for gentlemen of your stature, of your expertise,” Broome told Cerise and Levine.Under the plans, The Lake will add at least 60 new hospital beds and a Level One trauma center capable of handling the most severe medical emergencies. Meanwhile, LSU will build an urgent care center at its new north Baton Rouge medical clinic. Cerise said LSU also will continue to operate outpatient medical clinics around the city with extended hours of operation.When The Lake begins taking patients that currently go to Earl K. Long, the hospital will be paid for the uninsured care and Medicaid patient care at the same level LSU currently receives, Levine said. That’s a higher rate than other private and community hospitals receive.Bill Holman, president and CEO of Baton Rouge General Medical Center, said the agreement won’t ensure that the patients who currently receive care at Earl K. Long will move to The Lake. He said an ambulance will take a patient to the closest hospital in an emergency, and when Earl K. Long closes, one of the closest hospitals will be Baton Rouge General’s mid-city campus.Holman said his hospital couldn’t handle an influx of uninsured or Medicaid patients without the higher reimbursement rates that will be paid only to The Lake.”We will have no choice but to close services or ration patient care to survive,” he warned.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]